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FA or Still Count Against My Salary Cap? Topic

My player has cleared waivers and I tried to demote him to make room on my roster but got the below message. My question is: If I release him will his remaining 2 years count against my salary cap or does he become a FA at that time and his salary will not count against my future cap?

"You are attempting to outright Mariano Prieto to the minor leagues. He has the choice of becoming a free agent instead of accepting the assignment. We asked the player what he would do and he responded that he would elect to become a free agent. You may either keep him on your roster or release him."

My apologies, it's David Dotel in AAA. Got confused. Basically I need to clear salary to complete a trade because I will be over next season and I was trying to do something to get rid of his higher salary. I placed him on waivers today to see if I have any takers.

Posted by MikeT23 on 4/4/2013 8:51:00 AM (view original):Trade him. But, if he cleared waivers, I'm sure his value is less than his salary.

Now some would say "Include a prospect and pay his salary." I happen to think this is a retarded option. Wait it out.

I voiced that retarded opinion, but with the caveat that it applied in very limited circumstances — mainly, if clearing the salary allowed you to sign a draft pick who is better than the prospect packaged with the salary dump. Giving up a B-level prospect so you can sign a 1st-round pick makes sense. Giving up a B level prospect just because you don't like the player does not.

I agree it's very much a last resort. Ideally someone would claim a spare part and take on the salary. In either trade scenario you're giving up some amount of talent in exchange for salary relief. How much talent you give up depends on how much (and how badly) of the remainder of Dotel's $4.6M salary you need to clear.

I'm into a few seasons on my first team and when I took it over, I had 2-3 awful contracts. Your pitcher isn't that overpaid..if you really want to get rid of him, I would look at the worst contracts in your world and find one that is ending this season. Someone would gladly give up a crappy player who has bigger commitment (6m-7m) for that guy, and probably won't even realize or care your pitcher is signed for 2 years longer. I was very successful dumping bad contracts this way. Keep trading down, but for less time.